The Game |
Constraints
- Needs to be a serious game based of the Queen Anne's Revenge
- Must be suitable for middle schoolers
- Must be made using the Unreal 3 Engine
- Historically Accurate (added by us)
We accomplished the first bullet point by making the player learn about many topics. The player learns about the Queen Anne's Revenge, Blackbeard's ship, through a series of flashbacks, and also learns about good scuba diving techniques, as well as the restoration process of uncovered artifacts.
We accomplished the second bullet point by making the instructions and puzzles understandable for middle schoolers, as well as, taking out some of the gore and violence that is current in the unreal 3 engine. Typically the UT3 game is Rated M for mature, which is for a target audience of young adults 17 and higher. By eliminating some of the gore and violence that is present in the game we were able to make it acceptable for middle schoolers.
Lastly we kept the game as historically accurate as possible. As a team, we decided that this would be a great aspect to the game as the player would feel what it was really like on the Queen Anne's Revenge in the late 18th century. The team accomplished this by working closely with history professionals of different backgrounds. Such professionals came from the North Carolina Maritime Museum, the QAR Conservation Laboratory, the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, and the Queen Anne’s Revenge Shipwreck Unit.
Story
You are Jeffrey Kidd, a student in marine archeology on an internship diving the Queen Anne's Revenge. Your marine archeologist instructor, Dr. James Burton, is guiding you through the site and giving you specific tasks to complete. These tasks include searching the wreck for artifacts that can be restored. During your search you find a set number of artifacts which expand your history. These include a cannon, a spyglass, an anchor, and potentially more. While accompanying , Dr. Burton, you aid him in the restoring of the artifacts. After restoring the artifact a "flashback" to the past occurs. There you encounter Blackbeard and his crew of pirates. While on this ship you begin to learn behaviors of the pirates and life aboard the Queen Anne's Revenge. You will progress through the QAR's first ship overtaken, the blockade at Charleston, and the final wrecking of the Queen Anne's Revenge. You finally end after the wrecking of the Queen Anne's Revenge and are taking through a cinematic of the death of Blackbeard.
Gameplay
The flashback system provides the gameplay aspects on the Queen Anne's Revenge. The game features five different flashbacks that will have you in epic cannon battles, chase sequences, captures of other ships, and learning what life was like on the Queen Anne's Revenge in the late eighteenth century. You will recover the following items and each of these pieces will take you on a different journey onto the Queen Anne's Revenge. Are you ready for the adventure of a lifetime?
- Bell
- Spyglass
- Cannon
- Anchor
- Hull Piece
In order to get to the aspects of the game on the Queen Anne's Revenge you will face other challenges, in diving the wreck site of the Queen Anne's Revenge off the coast of North Carolina. During these dives you will find artifacts and bring them to the ship and then go through a mini game process of restoring them. This mini game includes X-Raying the artifact, chipping off the concretions of the artifact with your handy dandy Pneumatic Scribe, and then placing the artifact in a desalinization bath. Finally you will be able to experience life aboard the Queen Anne's Revenge.